Apple has had a tough time keeping up with insatiable demand for the iPad 2 since its went on sale in the U.S. March 11, but last week the dark clouds parted and let some tablet sunshine come through, with shipping times reduced to three to five days -- and now they’ve shrunk yet again.

The week is truly and really at an end and no, kids, there was nary a Lion to be seen. So chalk up another bad call for the rumor mill. Will people remember this the next time they cry "wolf in Lion's clothing"? Will they nothing. We're creatures who crave novelty and anticipation and nothing we do will ever cure the rumor addiction. And so just in case you weren't by your computer's side 24/7 waiting for the biggest cat of all to go live, here's a few stories you might just have missed.

Hey, iPad owners! This one's for you. iPad apps tend to be more expensive than their smaller-screened counterparts, but luckily they go on sale just as often. This week we found iPad apps for making comic-book heroes out of you and your friends, apps to give you a reason to haul your trusty iPad to meetings, and a game that lets you take over the world. And you can get all of 'em for less than the price of a six-dollar burger...

Printopia is a small System Preferences pane that, once installed, will give you access to non-AirPrint printers directly from your iOS device, but also includes a feature to print directly to your Dropbox folder on your Mac. With this feature, whenever you print, a PDF file will be immediately transfered to your Mac's Dropbox folder and opened.

There was no Lion release party this week, like so many had predicted; and there were no hardware refreshes announced. But just you wait! shouts the rumor machine. Next week things are gonna go big big big. Well, we did get Spotify this week, which was a definite plus, so what the heck else happened in the land of Apple? Check out the top ten hottest news stories and get an eyeful yourself.

Plug in your iOS devices today, folks. Apple just released a new update for iOS 4. iOS 4.3.4 will include an update for PDF security, as well as an update that prevents malicious code from running in the background and affecting your system.

The creator of the much beloved, and highly successful iOS game Space Invaders Infinity Gene has announced that he is hard at work on a new project. Though he's not exactly being forthcoming with the details.

According to a new report, Apple may be looking to remove the “friend” portion of their “frenemy” relationship with Samsung, as Taiwan’s TSMC has begin trial manufacturing for the company’s next-generation A6 mobile chips. But will Cupertino choose to completely turn their back on Samsung?

Look, we get it. Angry Birds is an unfathomable success. They've transcended cult-hit status and landed at culture defining app of the decade. Even though some people don't like them. But nowadays you can't even open the App Store without seeing a clusterfunk of feathers. Chances are you've never even heard of these birds, even though they currently nest in the Top 150 Apps. Today we hatch awareness of the other birds in the App Store.

More than a few people have gone so far as to call Real Racing 2 the perfect iOS racing game, and we're pretty much in agreement. It's awesome. And it's about to get a bit more awesomer and perfecter as an update has arrived for the title and it's HD iPad counterpart.